Posted by Arnie Herz on September 30, 2004
Do business schools build better lawyers? This article suggests that they might. According to the piece, as "governance issues take center stage for corporate clients and deal-making gets more complex," more working and prospective lawyers are discovering the career-enhancing benefits of a B-school degree. Business people are coming to the table with more legal knowledge and they expect their legal advisors to be fluent in the workings of the business world. When steeped in business knowledge, the article states, lawyers see the legal issue from both sides and better serve their clients needs. This article brought back some law school memories for me. As a third year, I was allowed to take night school classes. I was always impressed with the way night students used their business savvy and real world understanding of human nature to address legal questions. As part of the labor force, they already knew in law school what it takes others years to understand as law firm associates working at arms length on business disputes and transactions. Will business school help you in your legal career? Perhaps. But, to my mind, my night school peers' on-the-job education gave them incomparable insight into the real interplay between the business and legal realms.
Posted by Arnie Herz on September 28, 2004
One of the greatest things about starting my own practice is the freedom I've gained to address all facets of my clients' legal issues - which typically are amalgams of legal, emotional and interpersonal/relationship concerns. By taking a broader view of disputes and transactions and engaging my clients in the problem-solving process, we optimize the results obtained. This article delves into the subject of lawyers as creative problem solvers. It suggests that, while law schools often suck the creativity out of lawyers-to-be, that creative life force can be reclaimed. It may take some tweaking of the standard approach to client counseling, however. Creative problem solvers look first at "their client's goals rather than the legal rules." They also develop a "fuller repertoire for preventing and resolving problems" such as using ADR and accepting "alternative understandings of what might constitute 'success' in resolving a particular client matter. The article closes with this interesting, if not rhetorical, question: "Although working well with legal rules is a vital lawyerly skill, many human problems can be addressed without reference to them. If doing so would actually solve the problem more efficiently, effectively and humanely, then why not?"
Posted by Arnie Herz on September 24, 2004
Here's another interesting article discussing the road to work-life balance in the legal profession. It suggests that firms seeking to create a culture of balance for its lawyers and support staff cannot do it piecemeal. Instead, they need to widen the focus and makeover their firm's management style and approach to attract and retain quality people with a common vision of what balance is. That vision might include reduced billable hours, new office space affording lower overhead, streamlined practice areas and marketing, and the use of "technology to increase lawyer and firm productivity (such as intrafirm networks, software, docketing and document management, Internet and online research, e-mail and voicemail)." I have been part of many conversations about fostering work-life balance. Although I've found little consensus on what "balance" means, most people agree that to take any larger balancing initiative from theory to practice, everyone in the firm must be on board and act as a team. Otherwise, competition and infighting will likely arise and sabotage the effort.
Posted by Arnie Herz on September 22, 2004
If you're in the New York City area between now and December, you might want to stop by the atrium lobby at John Jay College of Criminal Justice [899 Tenth Avenue between 58th and 59th Streets] to view a unique exhibit titled "Dispute Resolvers in NYC Make Talk Work." For this joint project of the City University of New York Dispute Resolution Consortium, the Dispute Resolution Program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the NYC Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings [OATH], dozens of dispute resolvers teamed with graphic artists to conceptualize and construct displays visually depicting how dispute resolution professionals work. According to the promotional e-mail I received, the exhibit includes displays by different curators focusing on dispute resolution in the following contexts: [1] Criminal justice; [2] School/Youth; [3] Government; [4] International; [5] Family/Health; [6] Corporate/Commercial; [7] Community; and [8] Employment/Workplace. More information will soon be posted on the CUNY DRC's website here.
Posted by Arnie Herz on September 21, 2004
I really enjoyed this article by fellow blogger Carolyn Elefant in which she candidly reflects on her first decade as a solo lawyer and comments on the state-of-the solo today. While she makes many great points about starting a business, using technology, marketing and balancing work and family life, one of her concluding thoughts really resonated with me: "As the practice of law becomes more like big business, service to clients, commitment to excellence and resourcefulness remain the only tools with which we solos can compete. We must use these tools not only to survive, however, but to lead." Well said and well done. Congratulations, Carolyn, on your decade of service.
Posted by Arnie Herz on September 15, 2004
As a professional mediator, I regularly visit mediate.com to catch up on dispute resolution reading. On my most recent visit, I came across this great article about the "close parallels between approaching and training a horse and mediating with people embroiled in a dispute." According to the author, lawyers and other conflict management professionals can learn a lot from horse trainers because the animal training "is little more than a form of negotiation." Just as savvy legal consumers are demanding that lawyers shed the mantle of authoritarian gospel dispensers ("we'll do this thing my way or the highway"), more sophisticated horse people and trainers are shifting away from spirit-breaking to a more gentle way of taming horses. Trainers using this approach - which is sometimes called gentling or horse whispering - carefully observe the "natural fears, rhythms and behaviors of an animal who is typically frightened and on unfamiliar ground, and [use their observations] to develop a rapport and trust." The author asserts that conflict managers dealing with anxious clients or their representatives can learn a lot from this approach since "managing conflict may be less about words, rational analysis and the use of logical argument, than it is about sensing and using the natural instincts and responses of the parties' constructively." In the author's opinion, conflict resolution is essentially all "about human 'whispering'." I couldn't agree more.
Posted by Arnie Herz on September 13, 2004
Here is a great piece about the dressing down some not-so-civil litigants received in an order from U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks of Austin, Texas. The judge issued the pointed order in an attempt to stop the madness propagated by "lawyers he felt were trying harder to attack each other than litigate their 20-month-old case." Thinking it high time that the litigants stop wasting time, get a life and consider attending anger management classes, the judge wrote: "Frankly, the undersigned would guess the lawyers in this case did not attend kindergarten, as they never learned how to get along well with others." After receiving the order, plaintiff's lead counsel copped "the case has spawned an unusual number of motions—including three motions for protective orders by the plaintiffs—all of which have required hearings before the judge." He also conceded the parties "used up a lot of the court's valuable time on disputes that [ ] were avoidable." From my experience, I believe the kind of abuse the court tried to check here is not uncommon. I think we'd see far less of it if more jurists and lawyers followed Judge Sparks' lead and countered such abuse with a zero tolerance policy.
Posted by Arnie Herz on September 9, 2004
The ABA's Law Practice Today has a great collection of articles on mentoring here. In the days of old, apprentices learned the law through mentors. Mentoring is on the rise in the 21st century because of an "increased concern with incivility in the profession; a desire to improve the profession's public image; and a growing recognition that the profession of law is becoming the business of law." Although there's no set definition of the mentor-mentee relationship, in essence, it's a dynamic one involving "the passing on of skills, knowledge, and wisdom from one person to another" concerning "the art and science of the practice of law." Ideally, the participants are co-equals who work together to direct the relationship and set its goals. I found these articles interesting and on the mark. I especially liked how they dispel some common misconceptions about the mentoring process. I'm currently mentoring another lawyer and find it mutually beneficial and very worthwhile. Through our monthly discussions on the practice of law and the legal profession, I've refined my vision of aptitude and success and rediscovered what I like most about being a lawyer.
Posted by Arnie Herz on September 8, 2004
I enjoyed this article from the ABA Journal eReport relating how some 300 associates at McDermott, Will & Emery recently took an improvisational comedy class as part of the firm's annual retreat. The purpose of the three-hour class was to teach participants "how to think and speak on their feet and work together as a team." Ultimately, the associates split up by practice group and performed skits with each other. They were asked to think up a product lawyers might use and create a skit advertising it. One group came up with the idea of a monkey that performed due diligence. I think this is a great way to boost team spirit within a firm. The ability to take oneself and the slings and arrows of the typical firm day lightly is a vital skill to cultivate as a lawyer. Seeing the funny side of situations faced throughout the day makes the job less taxing and more humane.
Posted by Arnie Herz on September 3, 2004
According to this recent article, a decline in jury trials "to less than 2 percent of all cases filed" has beget a notable gap in the skill set of law firm associates. To bridge this gap, firms are looking for "new ways to give their younger attorneys vital courtroom experience" so they'll be able to "convincingly bluff their opponents into believing a trial is imminent," adeptly present motions before a judge and ably handle the pressures of a jury trial should the rare opportunity arise. Some firms hire private consultants to take their associates through mock courtroom scenarios. Others encourage pro bono trial work or try to recruit seasoned lawyers from U.S. Attorneys' or district attorneys' offices. This pretty much covers the issue from the firms' perspective. When I was at a big firm, I witnessed how the reality of dwindling trial work impacted young associates looking to cut their litigator teeth. A number left for coveted positions with the U.S. Attorney or boutique operations. As for me, although I worked in my firm's litigation department, I never had a burning desire to be on the courtroom front line. I also felt, and still believe, that a lot of the skills lawyers use in litigating matters before juries are identical to those we employ in consulting with clients about legal issues and in endeavoring to settle matters pre-trial through negotiation or modes of alternate dispute resolution.
Posted by Arnie Herz on September 1, 2004
Having just returned from a much-needed and really terrific family vacation, I could easily relate to the "going-back-to-work blues" discussed in this CS Monitor article on finding greater career fulfillment. According to the piece, there are several roads we can take on that quest for contentment. One is to go to the powers-that-be with a job re-design proposal forged on a "WIFT" (a/k/a "what's in it for them") analysis of how our co-workers and firm would benefit from the overhaul. The brainchild of Sharon Jordan-Evans, a workplace consultant and author, WIFT follows the basic premise that we have the ultimate power to find fulfillment in our careers and, so, must "take ownership [and] identify what's wrong or what's missing." If the WIFT approach seems too daunting, the piece suggests some baby steps to bringing "joy back to the workplace," such as: taking time daily to help co-workers, give gratitude and indulge your sense of humor or regularly meeting with co-workers to talk about "peak moments in the past six months - times when [you and] they were inspired or felt a sense of accomplishment."
